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Manorialism and Risk Management in Pre-Industrial Society: Sweden in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Martin Dribe ,
Mats Olsson  and
Patrick Svensson
Martin Dribe
Affiliation:
Center for Economic Demography and Department of Economic History, Lund University
Mats Olsson
Affiliation:
Center for Economic Demography and Department of Economic History, Lund University
Patrick Svensson
Affiliation:
Center for Economic Demography and Department of Economic History, Lund University
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Abstract

Throughout pre-industrial Europe, the manorial estate was an important institution in the rural economy. Related literature communicates the widespread view that the estates insured their tenants against uncertainties, for example, in times of economic hardship. By distributing grain or accepting deferment of rents, the manors helped to alleviate hunger in times of scarcity. If this insurance was indeed effective, then manorial tenants should have experienced less fluctuation in income or food availability than other peasants. However, there has not been much empirical confirmation that the pre-industrial estates were effective in providing this kind of insurance. This study uses the impact of grain prices on demographic outcomes as a measure of the efficiency of the manorial system in protecting its inhabitants against economic stress. Looking at four hundred parishes in Sweden (1749-1859), the manorial estate seems to have been able to insure its inhabitants against risks of economic stress, but the protective effect was imperfect and only visible in the short term.

Type
Communities and Exchange
Information
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales - English Edition , Volume 67 , Issue 2 , June 2012 , pp. 337 - 353
Copyright
Copyright © Les Éditions de l’EHESS 2012

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Footnotes

*

The authors would like to thank the Linnaeus Center for Economic Demography, Lund University, and the research project “Economic Development and Social Dynamics: Swedish Agricultural Transformation in European Perspective” for financial support. We are also grateful to Lars Persson of the Department of Social and Economic Geography at Lund University for sharing his land ownership data. Previous versions of this article have been presented at the IUSSP seminar “Demographic Responses to Sudden Economic and Environmental Change” held at Reitaku University in Japan in May, 2009, the CNRS/EHESS workshop “A Critical Re-Examination of Demographic and Economic Crises in Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the early Twentieth Century” in Treviso, Italy in June 2009, and the World Congress of Economic History in Utrecht in August 2009. We thank the participants in these sessions for their comments and suggestions, particularly Gérard Béaur, who provided the idea for and nurtured our publication proposals.

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57. This map indicates the manorial parishes in which at least 80% of the peasants were fiscally categorized as owing their labor to the estates. Note that one estate is hidden by the insert.

58. Taken from Gillberg, Johan L., Historisk, Oeconomisk och Geographisk Beskrifning öfver Malmöhus Län uti Hertigdömet Skåne (Lund: Berling, 1765 Google Scholar); Gillberg, Johan L., Historisk, Oeconomisk och Geographisk Beskrifning öfver Christianstad Län uti Hertigdömet Skåne (Lund: Berling, 1767 Google Scholar). Manorial estates and presbyteries are not included in these estimates.

59. In Dribe, Olsson, , and Svensson, , “Was the Manorial System,”Google Scholar we make the same comparison with the parishes dominated by landowning peasants, but the difference between these and the mixed parishes in terms of demographic responses to economic stress are negligeable.

60. Ibid.

61. Ibid., table 5.

62. These figures are based on estimates based on models of interaction in which the degree of manorialism as a categorical variable is combined with the price of rye.

63. Fridlizius, Gunnar and Ohlsson, Rolf, “Mortality Patterns in Sweden 1751-1802: A Regional Analysis,” in Pre-Industrial Population Change: The Mortality Decline and Short-Term Population Movements, eds. Bengtsson, Tommy, Fridlizius, Gunnar, and Ohlsson, Rolf (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1984), 299-328 Google Scholar.

64. Created based on estimates drawn from interactive models. To consult the entire data and for a discussion of sources used, see Dribe, , Olsson, , and Svensson, , “Was the Manorial System.”Google Scholar